Recurring bill payments are made using payment cards such as credit cards. In some instances, external events can impact a cardholder's ability to use a pre-existing account number associated with a payment card to conduct recurring payments. Such external events may include the expiration of the payment card or the theft of the payment card. For example, when a payment card expires or is stolen, a new payment card is issued to the consumer, and the consumer needs to provide updated card information for each merchant that the consumer pays on a recurring basis.
Today, a service called VAU (Visa Account Updater) exists, which may be run using a server computer residing at a central location. In this service, the issuer of a payment card provides a file, which has new account information for its consumers (e.g., if the expiration date of a card changes, or if the card number changes—the card is lost, stolen, or replaced), to a payment processing network in a batch manner. The file may also specify who the new account information in the file can go to. For example, it may specify that only certain acquirers or merchants can receive the new account information. After the file is received, an acquirer associated with a merchant can provide a separate file with account numbers associated with recurring payments. The account numbers in the acquirer's file can be compared to the account numbers in the file received from the issuer. If there is a match, and if a merchant is authorized to receive the new card information, the merchant can use the new card information to continue to conduct recurring payments using the new card information instead of the user's old card information. In some cases, the merchant's use of the new card information for recurring payments may occur, even if the consumer is presently unsatisfied with the merchant's service. To stop the payment to any merchant, the consumer must contact that merchant to discontinue the relationship with that merchant.
Another service that exists is PPCS (“payment processing cancellation service”). This service allows consumers to call a customer service representative and ask that certain transactions not be authorized. In this case, the consumer must know which transactions he does not want to authorize, and must provide the customer service representative with this information.
A number of improvements can be made to conventional bill payment processing. For example, in the conventional processing described above, the user may still have to use the same merchant when a user's card status changes, even though the user is not currently satisfied with the merchant's service (or goods). Thus, the user has very little control over the application of new card information. Further, the merchant needs to receive the new card information in order to process recurring payments with the new card information. The additional distribution of the new account number makes the new account number more susceptible to being compromised. Merchants must also maintain the overhead associated with updating the account numbers of its customers. Lastly, conventional recurring payment processes are inconvenient for the user. If the user does not allow for the automatic replacement of his old card information for his new card information for recurring bill payments, then the user must remember all of the merchants that he uses for recurring payments, and must contact each merchant individually to change his card on file with that merchant from old card information to new card information.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems, individually and collectively.